About

Endeavor: Age of Sail

CA$ 686,601

pledged of CA$ 75,000 goal

7,553

backers

The modern classic returns! Did you miss your chance to play it when the original edition was available? Did you play a friend's copy and can't understand why it ever went out of print? Did you play your own copy into ragged pieces like we did? Whichever one of those is true, or if this is your first look at the game, welcome to the campaign! It is a dream come true for us to bring this game from Jarratt Gray and Carl de Visser back to gamers everywhere!

Endeavor: Age of Sail is a strategy board game set in the historic Age of Sail. Starting out in the crowded hub of Europe, you must struggle to dominate at home while sending ships to the closed regions of the world... and be ready to seize control when they open up! You'll compete to grow the most successful empire through a smooth combination of:

area control(capture key cities and the routes that join them!)

resource collection(get the assets to build your empire!)

engine-building(construct the buildings to power your strategy!)

action management (use your population and trade tokens wisely!)

The elegant gameplay is driven by five different actions (Occupy, Ship, Draw, Attack, and Payment), and five different attributes (Industry, Wealth, Culture, Influence, and Glory):

The way you build, combine, and manage those elements creates your empire. Your challenge will be to navigate the maps of the world as they unfold, and write the history books so that the Age of Sail describes your victory!

For a detailed description of gameplay, see the How to Play section below.

Endeavor: Age of Sail preserves everything about the original edition that you know and love. The satisfying pacing which begins briskly but grows richer and deeper with every turn, the always-interesting breadth of the choices available to you, that feeling of the world unfolding as the game progresses, it's all still there. And it's all driven by that surprisingly lean ruleset which draws its complexity from the interactions and tensions that it creates. So how did we improve on this? Let's take a look:

Exploits are the major new gameplay addition unique to Endeavor: Age of Sail. Sure you can play the game without them (and for your first play you probably should), but once you play with them you'll never go back!

In each game you'll deal out three random Exploits (or choose three you enjoy playing with). Like the regions of the world, Exploits are locked at the start of the game. Each Exploit is a historical event from the era that is related to two of the regions on the board. When both of those regions are opened during the game, that Exploit becomes unlocked, and players may now begin interacting with its unique mechanisms and scoring opportunities.

For example, the Spanish Main Exploit is related to North America and South America. When those regions open up, that means that the Spanish Main is now occurring in the story of our game. Players may now use the Exploit's actions to Fortify their cities using the provided tokens (making them costlier for foes to attack), and once they've fortified, can trigger a powerful mid-round payment of workers back home! In addition, a new scoring opportunity opens up. Amazing!

Each Exploit comes with its own immersive new abilities and strategic possibilities, and the game includes all of the special components that are needed to carry them out. This exciting variety of possible Exploit combinations means that every game will drive player interest towards different regions of the world, and create new pathways to victory even for seasoned veterans!

Players command major seafaring empires during the historical Age of Sail. You have your own player mat, where you track your empire’s attributes, construct buildings that permit you actions in the game, and gather Asset cards to build your attributes and gain Glory!

Each round, you’ll construct one building (based on your Industry level), gain population (based on your Culture level), pay workers to free up buildings (based on your Wealth level), take actions, then manage your cards (based on your Influence level).

At the start of the game, player actions are mostly limited to interacting with Europe; using your population to activate your own buildings, you’ll draw Asset cards to increase your abilities, and occupy Cities to gain their Glory and assets, and to control the valuable links between them.

Soon enough, you’ll construct buildings that permit shipactions, and this allows you to reach out to the closed regions of the world. By shipping to a region, you can begin drawing cards from that region; when its shipping track is filled up, the valuable Governor card is awarded and the region becomes open. An open region’s Cities and links can be competed over just like Europe’s.

Eventually players will run out of room to expand, and if you’ve built buildings with attack actions, you’ll be able to engage in combat. Drive your opponents from the cities they’ve claimed, to deny them the city’s Glory points and to break up their network of profitable trade routes!

Once seven rounds have passed, the game comes to an end and scores are tallied. You’ll earn Glory for:

How well you’ve improved your four attributes (Industry, Culture, Wealth, and Influence)

The Cities you occupy and the links you control

Glory symbols on your cards and buildings

Special scoring opportunities from this game’s Exploits

The player whose empire has accumulated the most Glory wins!

Tom's Playthrough

Tom's Final Thoughts

...plus glowing praise for the original edition of Endeavor:

"A very elegant design with easy to grasp, easy to teach mechanisms. Rich choices of actions on a rapidly evolving world map. No randomness beyond initial setup. Plenty of strategy and tactics packed into a 75 minute play time window. A definite 10 after repeat playings. Bravo!"~Thorwolf (bgg user)

"A fantastic game - just the perfect level of depth for non-gamers to grasp reasonably well, but plenty of room for strategizing as well! Well done to the designers! So many paths to victory - and each so beautifully balanced."~superbgg (bgg user)

"I was surprised at how simple Endeavor is. It looks so thinky and complex, but the game play is actually quite easy. What sets it apart is the uniqueness of its mechanics and how it covers its historical theme in a way that is much more complete and accurate than most games with the "Age of Discovery" theme. It may be simple, but you have to use advanced thinking to defeat your opponent!"~espoon82 (bgg user)

Endeavor design and Age of Sail development: Carl de Visser & Jarratt Gray

Graphic Design & Development: Joshua Cappel

Publisher, Burnt Island Games: Helaina Cappel

Publisher, Grand Gamers Guild:Marc Specter

Videography:Jon Mietling

Building art & coloring: Leandro Oliveira & Vinicius Townsend

3D Models: Heriberto Martinez

Risks and challenges

A note on our combined track record from KTBG (Burnt Island's Sibling Company) and Grand Gamers Guild:
• Successful and timely fulfillment of 5 projects over 2 years.
• Wide praise for production quality and gameplay development.
• Designers and artists with years of experience in their disciplines.

All of the art and mechanics for the game are complete, so once this campaign ends, we'll be ready to roll.

We will be using fulfillment partners from around the world so that we can insure a fast and smooth operation. We are optimistic that everything will go as planned because of our previous combined experience. Our fulfillment partners are QuarterMaster Games in the US and HappyShops in the EU. We have full faith that your games will be delivered to you safe and in a timely fashion.

Our ultimate goal is transparency. We want you to be happy! We promise to keep you in the loop every step of the way. If you have any questions, send us a message, email us, or simply comment on the campaign. We will get back to you as soon as humanly possible.

Kickstarter is not a store.

Pledge CA$ 80 or more
About $61

Commodore for Retail

This reward level is for brick and mortar retailers only to get Endeavor: Age of Sail Kickstarter Edition. This level will only be delivered to retailers in Canada and the USA.

Retailers, you will have the opportunity to purchase bundles of the game in 4 or 7. With your purchase of 7 copies, we will give you 1 demo copy for your store. Demo copies will arrive unwrapped.

Retailers must provide proof of business in order to qualify for this reward level. Business certificate and photos of your brick and mortar store will be required. Your Kickstarter pledge will apply to your total cost and the balance will be paid through BackerKit prior to fulfillment (including shipping).